All WA state regions advance to Phase 2 on Roadmap to Recovery

A Feb. 14 media release from the state Department of Health (DOH) reports that it helped Providence St. Mary Medical Center in Walla Walla revise and recalculate its COVID admission data which now meets the requisite Phase 2 metric.

“The Roadmap to Recovery dashboard will be updated with this information on Tuesday (Feb. 16),” DOH said

Providence St. Mary discovered its error regarding positive patient admissions on Friday, Feb. 12, and immediately provided corrected data to DOH.

“The error was unintentional, and we acted as quickly as possible to provide corrected data to the state,” said Providence St. Mary Chief Executive Susan Blackburn. “We hope this corrected information will be helpful in assessing whether our communities are ready to move to Phase 2 of the Governor’s reopening plan, and we appreciate our partnership with the state that has allowed us to correct this error.”

DOH determined last week that five regions including North Central, comprised of Okanogan, Chelan, Douglas, and Grant counties, could move to Phase 2 joining the Puget Sound and West regions that advanced to Phase 2 on Jan. 28.

“Regions are required to meet criteria for three of the four metrics outlined in the Roadmap to Recovery plan in order to move into or remain in Phase 2,” the DOH release said. Those metrics include:

• Trend in 14-day rate of new COVID-19 cases per 100,000 population
• Trend in 14-day rate of new COVID-19 hospital admissions per 100,000 population
• Average 7-day percent occupancy of ICU staffed beds
• 7-day percent positive of COVID-19 tests

DOH re-evaluates regional metrics every two weeks and announces adjustments on Thursdays. The next announcement will be Thursday, February 25, for phase status effective March 1.